Thank you for joining us Steve. I have a question for you as you were anticipating this discussion. Did you feel any adrenaline? Yes, yes, I did. I certainly did. One to 10. I would say more on a level of two to three. Just want to make sure I’m prepared and ready to go. Okay, positive anticipation. So, let’s frame this discussion for the listeners. Give a little bit, explain a little bit about your history with social anxiety. You’ve had it for how long and what has it looked like. Well, I believe I may have had it my entire life, but I know for sure when I was 12 years old, I had a situation where I was nervous in front of people and you know, I’m now in my early 50s.
I’ve had it at least in 12 years old and at age 44, I had a panic attack where I would worry about certain things. If I had to do a monologue, speak to a presentation, something as simple as introducing myself would get me very nervous. It was as if I would take the situation and turn it into a phobia, worrying about things for days, even weeks at that. So, I had those things going on, but I also would sometimes watch certain situations where I just didn’t feel comfortable. So, describe a typical scenario back before you started working with me and what would happen. You would have a speaking engagement and you would start worrying and then what would take place.
Well, let me say this. I have done hundreds of presentations in school, college, et cetera, business world. A lot of times, if I do, I prepared an advance. I would do a great job. Feedback was very positive, but there were certain instances, for example, if I had to go into a scenario where I might have to introduce myself in front of a group and give a one to two minutes monologue about myself, for some reason that would make me very, very nervous. So, in those situations, I would worry about those potential scenarios, days or weeks in advance. To the point where it just was overwhelming and I knew that I needed to seek help for this issue.
For the sake of relativity and in working with me, you know that I like to measure everything on the one to ten skills. So, if ten is the most severe and one is the least, grading your problem and the more that people listen to these interviews that I do, the more they understand their layers to the problem. There’s the anticipatory worry. There’s the anxiety in the challenge scenario itself. There’s the fear of the physical symptoms. There’s the ruminating afterwards. There’s how it impacts the mood in general and self-esteem. If you started at what number with severity, you’re at what number right now? Well, I would say right now I’m at a one or a two. I’m feeling much better about myself where before in first situation it was a minor attempt.
Okay, well, I’d like you to share with the audience how you achieve this. When I look at my records, I see that over the course of one year, approximately, you had 21 sessions with me. That’s a lucky number by the way. So, share with the listeners what you did to achieve your success. Well, first of all, I’m sure I’m glad when I searched for you. I found your information online and I was able to start meeting with you. But I learned that I’m not the only person with social anxiety. There are a lot of people that have social anxiety. So, really understanding I’m not the only person in understanding more about the underlying issues of social anxiety and learning about the whole issue, I think, is the plot. The book that you have, work makes me nervous, excellent. Reading that book, taking notes, going through the exercise in the book, all health. And I think finally, utilization of the beta blockers in certain situations for me really helps. The beta blockers would make my heart rate relax and just made me feel at ease when I would go into a situation that I felt could be tense. I think the other plus to the beta blockers is that now if I have an upcoming event, I’m not so worried. I’m not worried about it. Not nearly the way I watched the past, well, I know that if I need to use beta
blockers, occasionally, for certain scenarios that have made me nervous in the past, I will do still have a healthy. Okay, well, the title of this interview is High Performance Use of Beta Blockers. So, I want to nail down your high performance use because the last thing that I would want is somebody who has public speaking anxiety thinking, okay, I’m just going to take a beta block and my problem is going to be over. For example, I remember one woman who was in management and she was going to Toastmasters and when she, which I refer a lot of people to, by the way, and when she went to Toastmasters, she took a beta block and my response to that was, what are you doing? Toastmasters is a place where you experiment and you invest in learning skills. So, clarify when you make the decision and how you make the decision to use the medicine.
Well, it’s truly a matter of certain situations where I feel that it will help me, it will make me more relaxed and I’m not saying all public speaking scenarios. If I have to give a speech that’s too late, there’s a good chance that I’m not going to use beta blockers because I know that I can give great, because I’ve gone to Toastmasters and helped me. But there are certain situations where if I might be in a group and I need to do a monologue presentation of myself that’s not prepared in advance, those types of things that pass have, I feel like there’s no couple of phobia over them. So, those situations would use the beta blocker and just one of them, just one and it is really healthy to be more relaxed and at ease.
Okay, well, let’s back up for a minute here. The way that I understand it, correct me if I’m wrong, is that you use a beta, and you’re busy, you’re an executive and you do a lot of interaction and you have a lot of meetings and you’re a busy guy. And the way that I understand it is that you use a beta blocker approximately once every how often. Once a month. Okay. And what I tell my patients regarding beta blockers is if you use it when needed here and there, it’s really okay, healthy and productive. You just don’t want to get into a habit where you’re dependent on it and you use it in all situations. So, talk a little bit about what you learned to control your social anxiety in general so that basically it’s only about three, four, five percent of the time that you do take a beta blocker. Give a little more insight, like for example, when we used to have our sessions, you used to talk about one three five. Can you share what that is?
Yeah, really, the one three five is the high state frame of mind and utilizing adult logic and having a positive frame of mind. Also, natural child being able to mix them, humor, sometimes certain marios. I think humor is a good thing to do. And then the third one, the nurturing current, being able to logically think through things and talk them through utilizing that with adult logic and basically having a positive frame of mind and rationally talking through things and trying to have a good balanced approach to the five mind states making sure that the two negative mind states are not too high in respect to form.
Okay, well, when you’re talking about the negative mind states, just to clarify, all the states are very important. The mind states and their specific energy with each one, what Steve is referencing is that the excessive critical mind state and how that hooks the excessive adaptation or the adaptive child mind state. So basically though, I’m thinking that you learned the treatment and your reading and the self-help to accomplish the vast majority of your success through natural methods, but you save the beta blocker. And this is the point that I want to make sure I’m right about and the point that the audience gets that you save the beta blocker for the overwhelming specific once a month type of challenge. Is that accurate? It is definitely every public presentation, speech, etc. I would use a beta blocker. No, of course, specific situations where I feel it will help me and become more relaxed, but it’s certainly not a scenario where I would want to use it every time. No, okay, but those specific scenarios where you take the beta blocker are characterized by what elements, because I’m thinking that it’s the real overwhelming challenges that result in you taking the beta blocker and knowing that you have that as a tool has taken away a lot of the obsessive worry, but that it’s a small percentage of the time that you utilize them.
Yeah, exactly. And I use it where scenarios in the past perhaps I had a bad situation, a social situation, or a certain type of public presentation, a certain type of audience. I think social anxiety can be very specific from person to person. One person may have a fear, another person may not have a fear. So in a certain specific situation where perhaps I feel I will have a rapid heartbeat and become very nervous, that would be a scenario where I would use a beta blocker. But in other scenarios, for example, if I have to give a speech, even the board of directors, and I’m all butts up and I have a far-point conversation, I would not need a beta blocker. I would have confidence that I could stand up there, give a great speech. But there are other times scenarios where I just don’t have that confidence, and beta blockers have worked. Okay, what is the pattern? I know I’m busting you, Champsia, but what is the pattern of the challenge? What are the specific variables that determine when you’re going to take the beta blocker? Because you give plenty of speeches, you have plenty of interactions. What is it about the peak challenge? What are the variables about the peak challenge that require you to want to have that safety valve?
Well, I think one area is more off-cost, type of communication in front of an audience, where perhaps I don’t have a what-up for considered presentation, the more of a monologue communication that I might have to do in a group. So, last question here. So, after having struggling with social anxiety for such a long time, for many decades, and now you have it, you’re saying 95% on the control. What has your life different? Or, just, last worry on my mind, which is wonderful, if there’s an event that’s coming up, I’m not obsessively worried about it for days, for weeks, even months. So, piece of my more just relaxful attitude positive frame of mind. Yeah, so that’s all great. This has been wonderful. I just thank you, Jonathan, that I was able to find you and meet with you. But, my advice to people out there would be to feel they have those playing anxiety. Number one, take health. Look for health. Try to understand the situation, which is point two. The more you can learn about social anxiety, I think the better off you will be. And number three, don’t give up. This is certainly not an easy process. I don’t think I’ll ever feel 100% of the time. But, it’s something where you can definitely become much better and have less anxiety in your life. So, good thing. Well, I thank you very much for sharing.
